


Fire call

by PeopleGoBoom



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Clumsy allyship, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff Pride, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 00:32:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12047568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeopleGoBoom/pseuds/PeopleGoBoom
Summary: Zathyra Parkinson firecalls her grandmother to ask her help. It turns out explaining certain things across generations can sometimes be just a bit of a challenge.Just two clumsy allies, one a lot more ignorant than the other, trying to figure out how to help.





	Fire call

Zathyra Parkinson settled down in the little former broom closet off of the Hufflepuff common room for her weekly chat with her grandmother. The fireplace was small, but there was a comfortable chair, and she always enjoyed these talks. This time, though, she was a bit nervous. Big favours to ask tended to do that, and her granny could sometimes be a bit… unpredictable. 

“Hello, Zathyra,” the fireplace said. She answered and activated it from her side with a flick of her wand, and her grandmother's face showed up.

“Gransy,” she began, quickly before she could put it off, “you know a lot about… womanly things, right?”

“Oh dear,” Pansy sighed. “No, don't say any more until I've said this one thing, because if it's not the issue now it might be later: Even if you decide to follow in that particular family tradition, you need to make sure you actually finish Hogwarts, do you hear me? Learn your protective spells and use them! Unless… it's not too late, is it? I will never try to tell you what to do then, I hope you know that.”

“Oh, no, it's not like that! It's nothing like that at all!” 

“What is it, then?”

“There's this friend of mine who needs to learn how to… well, be a woman, I guess? I mean, she kind of needs to learn it all, everything all at once before we come back for sixth year?”

“Well, everyone bumbles about for a few years figuring it out. It is expected, at least to some degree. Though hardly ever by the girl herself, come to think of it.”

“Yes, but, see, a lot of people are going to expect her to fail and even try to make her fail, even! And that's just wrong.”

“Oh, I see, one of those situations. Yes, that sounds like a challenge. A rather fun one, though – especially as I am sure we can pull it off.”

“I hoped you would see it that way! You'll help, then?”

“I might. What sort of help did you have in mind?”

“Well, we were thinking if she could come with me when we come to yours for Easter... and you could actually just… help? You know, clothes, how to move, that kind of thing.”

“That is rather vague, Zathyra. What is wrong with this girl? Are people picking on her? Are we going to have to make her look so different that people stop in shock, Cinderella-style?”

“Maybe? That could be good, but I don't actually know. I don't know, Gransy. The thing is, they don't actually know that Linda is a girl yet.”

“Is this about trying to get a special someone to notice her, then? Because I'll have to warn you girls, that is very likely to end in tears and frustration. Ask your aunt about that sometime.”

“No, it's, like, everyone. Nobody knows that she's a girl except the girls in our year and we're all helping, and she can come back next year as a girl all at once, see?”

“This is rather confusing, I'm not sure I see what you mean at all. What did they think she was – a house elf?”

“Merlin, don't. A boy, of course!”

“Honestly, what is wrong with people these days? Wouldn't the name Linda ring a bell for people? Or which dorm she sleeps in?”

“They don't know that her name is Linda! And she sleeps in the boy's dorm because everyone thought she was a boy! But the wards know, they let her in the girls' as well.”

“I really don't understand how this happened in the first place, but I think I have the gist of it now. Let me know if I have it right: Linda is a girl whom everyone assumed was a boy, and therefore she never learned many of the skills she will need to convince others that she is in fact a girl, soon a young woman. Since everyone know her as a boy they will be likely to need a large amount of convincing. And since I know about, hum, womanly things, you want me to help. Am I close?”

“Yes, that's it exactly!”

“Hmmm. If nothing else puberty should make it a bit easier.”

“Merlin, Gransy, weren't you listening? They thought she was a boy! She is going to have a male puberty! Unless we stop it. But Weasley's aunt is helping with that, she's super good at research, so don't worry about that part.”

“Oh. Oh, now I think I comprehend the situation better. You might have said this first, Zathyra, it would have made a lot more sense this way.”

“Sorry. Anyway, now you know. Will you help?”

“I might. But first, I think you girls are grossly underestimating a few social aspects of the situation here. For instance, what if her family objects? If they went to these lengths to get an heir to begin with they might be very put out at a bunch of children exposing the plot and reversing their effort. Which family is this, anyway?”

“No, wait, it's not like that!”

“Listen to your Slytherin granny for once: It most likely is. There is even some precedent for this sort of thing, and probably more than we know about too – some families likely got away with it, after all, all we know about are the ones who didn't, which doesn't say much about how many did. And oh, it would certainly explain how some pureblood families always ran to boys. The Malfoys...”

“I'm telling you, gran, it's not like that! She didn't even know for sure herself until last year.”

“What, not telling the child… I can not for the life of me decide whether that is terribly brutal or the kindest thing, really. If all goes well it is the kindest thing, obviously, but if anything goes wrong and the poor thing is all ignorant and at Hogwarts without her family that could really… oh my, something did go wrong, didn't it? Was that how she discovered it?”

“Gransy, stop right now, you've got it so badly wrong I don't even know where to start!”

“I'm not sure I do, but tell me what I'm missing and I am sure we will figure it all out in time.”

“Okay, well. The thing is, her family just sort of didn't discover that she was a girl when she was born…” 

“How is such a thing even possible? Oh wait, is your friend a muggleborn? Is this due to some muggleborn custom or taboo? Because I have this one muggleborn friend, and I'm sure she won't mind if I ask her about this, I ask her about strange muggleborn customs all the time.”

Zathyra cringed at that. “She doesn't mind or she might be too polite to tell you. But no, this is not a muggleborn thing. Linda is pureblood, old family, all that stuff. They didn't discover it because she had boy bits, probably.”

“She had boy bits? Then what made her not a boy? I must admit this is all very confusing, Zathyra.”

“Yes, sorry, I should have started somewhere else, sorry.”

“Never apologize for the same thing twice, especially not in the same sentence, people will think you are soft. What I do not understand, dear, is how she knew she was a girl if all, ahem, outer indicators pointed the other way, so to speak.”

“Use your words, gran. I've heard you say the word penis before. Don't turn prudish on me just because you're confused.”

“Yes, well, if she had a penis at birth, if you will.”

“She just knew. The gender people assumed she was and her identity just didn't match up. It happens sometimes. But a lot of people don't know that, and some of the ones that do are mean about it even so. The magic knows, though. The wards let her in.”

“Hogwarts wards are very complex things, they can deal with a lot. And they can not be tricked. Believe me, we tried. The status jump of anyone succeeding in something so tricky would have been unimaginable, but of course no one ever succeeded. I have never heard of anyone who did.”

“So now you believe me? You'll help?”

“Unless there's a lot of trouble in it I will. The wards are not wrong. Which family is this, anyway?”

“Faust… I don't think they'll make a fuss, but you never know. Professor Sage says Hogwarts have protocols for that, but I only think that will help Linda, really.”

“Oh, the Fausts couldn't hurt a fly. Wait, is this the son, well, daughter I suppose, of that old fart Henry Faust?”

“Yes…”

“Oh, even better. That's why I had your father, you know – my family wanted to marry me off to him, and already then he was twice as old as me. And he just kept looking for young pureblood things out of Hogwarts until he married one, ten years later or so – one of the Cauderwells, I think. And then – nothing. No baby until years later. I hope that was because the girl had the sense to use protection spells in secret until she was good and ready for parenthood. Not that she got that, poor thing, she died when the child was still very young. And I remember thinking: That could have been me. I'm so terribly glad that wasn't me. No, I don't mind at all snubbing Faust, do make sure to discreetly let people know I helped.”

“Thank you so much! Linda will be so stoked.” 

“Oh, it will be my pleasure, and that is the truth. Anyway, old Faust is not going to bother me, and I never got him back for almost stealing my youth.” 

“You stole your own youth instead, though. Or dad stole it, I guess.”

“Oh, nonsense, he did no such thing. Your father was a lovely baby, and I would not have missed him for the world. And I had to do something to get out of that marriage. Besides, I had a house elf, I was perfectly comfortable being a young, unmarried mother, even if it took my family a few years to get over the shock.”

“In contrast it took you just two weeks of spluttering to accept your blood being sorted into Hufflepuff. You're pretty cool, Gransy.”

“I am as cool as a cucumber.”

“…sandwich.”

“They warn you about motherhood being hard, but somehow always leave out the warnings for grandmotherhood. It sounds like it is all about baking tea cakes together and then before you know it they start talking back.” 

“Consider me warned.”

“Besides, I thought that Hufflepuffs had to always be nice to their grandmother. I thought it was in your book of rules or something like that.”

“It probably is.”

“I also had the impression that Hufflepuffs were supposed to follow the rules.”

“Unless they clash with our moral compass, sure.”

“Oh yes, I am sure being nice to your grandmother is an enormous challenge to your moral compass.”

“Only when she needs other things more,” Zathyra smiled sweetly. 

“Terrible child. Remain terrible until we talk next Thursday, then.”

“Always,” Zathyra grinned at the fireplace as her grandmother faded. “You too.”

**Author's Note:**

> So yes, I am a bit fascinated by clumsy allyship. I've seen a lot of it for a while now. 
> 
> Pansy is built upon Pansy as I wrote her in [A Very Deliberate Ruination](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8526988). 
> 
> Of course Pansy has a token muggleborn friend that she floods with inane questions. 
> 
> Of course none of them realize that directing the researching "Weasley's aunt" (Hermione, of course) to the information about pureblood heir ensurance might be helpful. 
> 
> Of course Zathyra never realize that she explains the whole trans problem in a way that her grandmother is never going to get. 
> 
> And of course Pansy is convinced by the wards. 
> 
> And of course she will help.


End file.
